For the light receiving members for use in electrophotography and the like, the public attention has been focused on such light receiving members that have a photoconductive layer formed of an amorphous material containing silicon atom as the main layer constituent and hydrogen atom or/and halogen atom [hereinafter referred to as "A--Si(H,X)"] as disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publications Sho. 54(1979)-86341 and Sho. 56(1981)-83746, since said photoconductive layer has a high Vickers hardness in addition to having an excellent matching property in the photosensitive region in comparison with that in other kinds of light receiving member and it is not harmful to living things as well as man upon the use.
By the way, in any case, such light receiving member comprises a substrate and a photoconductive layer formed of A--Si(H,X). In this respect, it is known to provide a surface layer on the photoconductive layer, which functions to prevent the photoconductive layer from being injected by charges from its free surface side when it is engaged in charging process and to improve the moisture resistance, repeating use characteristics, breakdown voltage resistance, use environmental characteristics and durability of the photoconductive layer, and further in order to make it possible to maintain the quality of the images to be obtained for a long period of time.
And there have been made various proposals to form such surface layer using a high resistant and phototransmissive non-monocrystalline material such as amorphous material and polycrystalline material.
Among those proposals, there is a proposal to form such surface layer using a boron-nitrogen series amorphous material as disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publications Sho. 59(1984)12448 and Sho. 60(1985)-61760.
However, the boron(B)-nitrogen(N) series amorphous materials to form the foregoing surface layer which are disclosed in said publications are: boron atom and nitrogen atom are contained in unevenly distributed state and in addition, in large amount of hydrogen atom is contained; B--H bond, N--H bond and B--B bond are present in abundance; and the presence of B--N bond is slight and three dimensional structure by B--N bond is little present.
Because of this, for the light receiving members disclosed in said publications which has a surface layer formed of said boron-nitrogen series amorphous material, there are still unresolved problems that the surface layer is apt to be easily deteriorated not only with corona discharge in the charging process but also due to various mechanical actions during the contacts with a cleaning blade or other members of the device and as the layer deteriorates, it loses the functions required therefor. In addition to the above problems, the foregoing light receiving member has other problems that it is insufficient in charging efficiency so that it often brings about defective images such as those accompanied with undesired ghosts in the case where it is used in an image-making device.